The shitty thing is, based on ND's schedule, they really might make a BCS bowl. They'll lose to USC (probably by ninety-some points) and they can lose 2 more and still make a BCS bowl. Where they will likely get mega-throttled, but they'll be there. Injustice.

How the fuck did Tyrone Willingham get a raw deal? His teams were regularly blown out and embarrassed. The program was clearly making no progress. He sucks as a coach. If anyone got a raw deal, it's Notre Dame with all of the unfair media coverage that they have gotten as a result of it, and all of the false racism accusations that have gone along with it.

Weis has been given lenience because he has a bunch of years left on his absurd contract, which Notre Dame felt forced to give him because before the 2007 season, Weis was widely considered to be a prime candidate for an NFL job. Notre Dame showed poor judgement by overreacting to Weis's first two years and getting caught up in the hype that he made Tom Brady into a star, but it isn't relevant to what happened to Willingham.

And if Tyrone Willingham got a raw deal, then what about Bob Davie? He had about the same winning percentage, played tough schedules, got fired only one year after making a BCS game, and when his teams lost they got blown out less often.

Hannibal -- the reason I felt Willingham got a raw deal is that he only had three years as i recall and at the end of the second, some very influential boosters started a letter writing campaing that made it into the media that they wanted him out. Recruiting into that environment would be difficult.

My belief is that the reason Ty got canned at the time that he did was that ND wanted Urban Meyer and thought that they were the front runner to land him. I obviously was not in the conference room when the decision to fire willingham was being made, but I am basing my opinion on all of the media bluster that Meyer was the leading candidate for the ND spot.

Again, MSM is not the greatest source of accurate info, but it was all that was available to someone who wasn't going to spend a lot of time trying to learn about the inner workings of the ND AD.